


Your Arms Like Towers

by Nyxierose



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-06
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 15:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/749908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxierose/pseuds/Nyxierose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are nothing if not inevitable, total opposites destined to collide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

They've known each other for a while now, which is to say that they're in the same social circle and have had a handful of actual conversations over the last couple of years. They'd never describe their relationship as a friendship - hell, neither of them would call it a relationship in the first place. But, in their way, they are becoming something greater than either of them know.

He knows more about her than he ever lets on - after a while, the throwaway girl's backstory became common knowledge, though he doubts she has any idea what the rest of their group says about her. It's never anything horrid, just the occasional reference to her past, but he's pieced together the details. A fucked-up childhood, nothing too out of the ordinary, parents she's not speaking to anymore and a younger brother who sleeps on her couch, flits in and out of their circle, and acts like he's bulletproof even though he's only about twelve. Getting info out of the brother is next to impossible, and Combeferre gives up on that after a few attempts. He's just curious about the girl is all.

For her part, Eponine is equally curious about the quiet one, as she generally calls him. She has secret nicknames for everyone in their group, even the ones she barely knows, but the quiet one is defined by his more than any of the others. On the few occasions they've talked, and on a multitude of occasions when she's shamelessly stared at him from across the room, she's memorized every detail - the color of his eyes, the way he adjusts his glasses when he's not sure what to say, the gentle tone of his voice, and a hundred other little things no one else ever notices. She knows he's into girls and she knows he hasn't been on a date, successful or otherwise, since their group formed early in their freshman year of college. They're midway through junior year now, two and a half years is a long time, and there's just something _off_ about him that she wants to put her finger on if it's the last thing she does.

They exchanged phone numbers a while back, but that was a formality. They've never actually needed each other in that way.

Or at least that's the case until everything goes to pieces, until a broken girl needs something solid to cling to and picks the first thing she sees. But it isn't that simple or desperate, not really. That's just how it seems on a cold night in late February, when their story really begins…


	2. Can I Stay?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eponine shows up at Combeferre's door late at night and fluff happens.

This isn't anything new, she reminds herself for about the twentieth time that night. Everyone around her is content to fall in and out of love without regard for the consequences, and she's always been stuck in the middle of it, the unintentional damage control expert for most of their group. Like tonight, an hour-long phone call that featured the most emotion she's gotten out of R in six months. As close friends go, he's not half bad, but when he's moaning about unrequited love… well, Eponine has her limits. It's not like she's any good at talking _that_ down. The last time she properly fancied someone was in high school, and heaven knows that was a while ago. She doesn't feel things anymore. Or at least that's what she tells herself.

Except that now she _is_ feeling things, frustration and loneliness and a bit of stir-craziness, but it's eleven at night on a Friday and there is absolutely no one she can discuss this with. Well, maybe there's _one_ person, but she's not sure if dumping her personal problems on him is the best idea ever. Then again, it's not like she has any better ones. She knows he'll be home, she doubts his housemates will be, and it's worth a shot at the very least. Really, what does she have to lose?

Half an hour later, she shows up at his door, rain-soaked and freezing because somehow she thought it was a shorter distance there than it actually was and she is absolutely never doing that again. At least not without an umbrella - never mind that she doesn't have one after Gavroche broke hers last week and she can't be bothered to get a new one - and a thicker jacket than the one she's currently wearing. On the doorstep, her heart races, hand shaking as she reaches up to knock. Under any other circumstances, she'd run like hell and not stop until she got back home, but under these, she's stuck.

To her surprise - and she's not sure why it's a surprise but it _is_ \- Combeferre opens the door about ten seconds after she knocks and practically pulls her inside. "Ep?" His tone is a mixture of confusion and worry. "Do I want to know what happened?"

"I'm sick of everything," she sighs, shaking her shoulders free from his hands. "People are the worst."

"What happened?" Less panicky now, she notes, and closer to the sympathetic creature she may or may not have a thing for. "Or, should I ask… who did what?"

"Nobody did anything," she mutters. "I'm not sure what I hate more, people who get more talkative when they drink or being alone so much of the time."

He's not sure what to say to that, not sure what to make of the fact that the girl he's quietly fancied for the better part of two years is currently standing in his hallway and two steps away from a breakdown. For the first time in a while, he has no idea how to react. Touching on the emotional-ness of the situation would be a really bad idea, he decides. Instead, maybe something more practical. "So you walked all the way here because…"

"You're the only person I knew would be home, lucid, alone, and not inclined to yell at me," she finishes. "That good enough?"

"Are you alright? I mean, you look…"

"Like hell. Yeah, I know. And apart from the fact that my internal organs are probably soaked, never mind the rest of me, I'm totally fine." The last few words are said with a hint of sarcasm, although she wants to mean them. Wants him to believe her, at least.

"I'm going to go get some blankets and make tea. I know you think you're fine, but…"

"Thank you."

Ten minutes later, she's curled in a ball on his couch, wrapped in a squishy blanket (it was decided that this was less awkward than her borrowing someone's clothes) and taking cautious sips of some weird herbal tea with a name and ingredient list she can't pronounce. It's good, though, especially since she put in enough sugar to completely negate whatever health benefits the stuff supposedly has. "Why are you being so nice to me?" she asks after a while, breaking a silence neither of them was really aware of until it ceased.

"I wouldn't call this nice so much as decent human being," he replies, staring at her from the other side of the couch. It's a lot safer to look at her now that he can't see the way her drenched hoodie clung to every curve of her body - he supposes it still does underneath the blanket pile, but that's a mental image he can do without. "I'd do it for anyone."

"But not quite like you've done it for me," she laughs. "I've been watching you and you've barely stopped staring at me since I turned up. I highly doubt you'd do that for any of the guys."

"I make no promises."

She sticks out her free hand, reaching out and taking his and digging her fingernails into the soft skin of his wrist. "Can I stay here tonight?"

He has to think about it before answering. "Depends. Are you in the mood for a hyperactive Courf who thinks something happened between us?"

"He wouldn't," she counters, and there's a dark glow in her eyes as she speaks. "He knows how hard I can hit."

"Well, if he spots you on the couch, he'll suspect _something_."

"And I will tell him where he can stick that idea. Look, I know I'm in the way, but…"

"It's nothing. Like I said, I'd do this for anyone."

"But you're doing it better because it's me," she insists, and there is no way to make her give up on that idea.


End file.
